Amon Tobin: Sunday, Sept. 2

An electronic-music pioneer thinks outside the box...by putting himself in a big box.

[SOUND AND VISION] If you ever want to hear the sound of
grown men and women reduced to the giggly wonder of 10-year-olds, cue up
some YouTube videos of Amon Tobin’s current live show.

The 40-year-old
Brazilian electronic musician has been on the road for the better part
of a year in support of his latest album, ISAM. And rather than
stick himself “in front of a wall of LEDs or having some ginormous
production behind me showing everyone what a big star I am,” Tobin says
via phone, he thought he’d try something new. “Something that’s a
genuine narrative, both visual and musical. Almost like a visual
soundtrack to an audio score.”

To do that, he and a
team of audio engineers, computer animators and set designers concocted
an immersive 3-D experience that doesn’t require clunky glasses to
enjoy. Tobin and his beat machines and noisemakers are ensconced within a
25-foot-tall, 14-foot-long structure upon which is projected a
precisely coordinated series of images, colors and visuals—everything
from swirling psychedelic patterns to churning steampunk gears and
pipes—that correspond to each track in his hour-plus set.

The result is an
immersive multimedia experience, and the perfect complement to an album
that, though it was released more than 12 months ago, still carries a
great deal of enveloping and overwhelming power.

ISAM was a
step away from what was expected from the already beloved producer. Or
as Tobin bluntly wrote on the Web after the album’s online release:
“Anyone looking for jazzy breaks should look elsewhere at this point.”

ISAM moved
away from the funky drummer beats and bouncing intrusions by MCs in
place of a grander, more synthetic approach. Or, as Tobin puts it, “a
contrast between advanced futuristic sound and clunky dust-covered
mechanisms.”

So, a track like
“Goto 10” will balloon out with huge bass notes and frizzy overtones
while being pricked from underneath with distorted guitar stabs and
cheeky vocal samples. “Kitty Cat” features a campfirelike singalong and a
2/4 shuffle tumbling with the sound of flying cars hovering over the
scene.

The only potential
downside to this type of live show is, Tobin can’t deviate from the set
list, nor can he improvise on his material. The only time he can change
things, he says, is “if something goes wrong.” But that’s exactly what
he was looking for from the start of this project.

“It’s been a choice
to do something structured,” he says. “That’s how I approach DJ sets
anyway: working on something for years that will only be half an hour
long. I very much like that approach, as opposed to jamming.”

That said, though,
with this huge stage show and the structured audio-visual overload it
provides, does Tobin need to be there at all? Couldn’t he have someone
push “play” on his behalf while he stays cozy in his adopted hometown of
Montreal?

Not so, Tobin says.

“The whole point is
to integrate myself into a visual presentation of the music,” he says.
“I’m very much in the place. I just don’t feel like I need to be the
focus.”